Unhappy when his Canadian bank began outsourcing some of its credit card processing to the United States, the man lodged his protest via the bank’s online payment system, jamming its computers by making dozens of tiny payments a day.
Don Rogers said he was worried that anti-terrorism laws in the United States could allow the U.S. government to access his data without his consent.
“I don’t want the CIA or George Bush to know how many cases of Viagra I bought last week, or what church or charities I donate to,” he told Reuters.
He has also decided to run in the January 23 federal election as a candidate for a fringe party that wants to abolish the North American Free Trade Agreement linking Canada, the United States and Mexico.
Roger’s initial attempt at paying in pennies produced a statement over 32 feet long.
I thought this was funny. Probably because I did something similar to the US Draft Board during the VietNam War. My wife didn’t think it was funny. The fact that she works in IT for a bank may have something to do with that.
Thanks, Pat
Nice to see some imaginative protest action.
Interesting regards him being uncomfortable with his data being in the USA, due to the BAD USA record on privacy. The US might see a increase in foreign consumer reluctance to deal with them due to these issues.
Ref comment #1
I doubt it
There’s a difference between a protest and exhibiting mental illness.
Ah, the dangers of screwing with a retired person with too much time on his hands…
My initial thought: Great idea!
After consideration: too bad it doesn’t screw the bastards in charge of out-sourcing, and not just the worker-bees who may be the next ones out-sourced. 🙁
Yes. It’s never that uncomfie above the glass celing.
RT, ouch
***
The man has a grievance. He is demonstrating to the bank his displeasure with their policies. Maybe the bottom echelon are the ones that need to deal with it, the increased work load can only hurt profitability. As long as they must spend time processing the payment is time taken away from other work. The bank will either need to pay overtime or hire more staff, both which will cost money.
There is also the resultant bad publicity that NO BUSINESS wants to face. Now there may be some bank customer that will take his business elsewhere because they will not want to be tied to a bank they can not trust. Bank customers expect their banks to be solid and confidential. If their data is now open for examination by a foreign government, something their domestic government even can’t do, then the trust level falls. Even local people might be hesitant about dealing with the bank’s customers if there might be the possibility that Bush’s henchmen might be checking up on their dealing.
Most of our banks preclude that happening because they limit the amount of payments made per day to ONE.
Bush’s henchmen might be checking up on their dealing.
It was the Clinton Administration that first proposed so-called Know Your Customer regulations on banks.
they were online payments. That means the entire set of transactions were handled by a computer. I doubt any human, whether at the bottom of the ladder or the top, saw it. Sure, it cost the bank a bit more to process them…probably in the order of a few pennies each, but as Bob Laudig pointed out, the bank can charge for more than a set number of payments per day.
G